Andrew McCutchen employs new ritual in effort to break out of slump

A slump at the plate can drive even the best baseball players mad, just ask Pittsburgh Pirates star Andrew McCutchen.

McCutchen has been scuffling this season, hitting .223 with a .310 OBP. He’s been in a funk long enough that he’s gotten to the point where he’s resorting to more than just extra batting practice to get back on track.

Following another fruitless plate appearance in Pittsburgh’s game against St. Louis on Sunday, he returned to the dugout and that’s when the former National League MVP showed off an interesting ritual to get his mind and body right. McCutchen laid down on his back and began a series of hand movements like he was trying to remove the hitting jinx that’s plagued him all season once and for all.

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Whatever McCutchen did, it must have worked. He laced a double in his next at-bat and later scored on a Gregory Polanco sacrifice fly in a 4-3 win Pirates win. With hits in 10 out of his last 11 games, it appears McCutchen is finally rounding into form.

On the 1-Pedro Cerrano scale for unusual tactics employed to help performance on the field, we’ll give this one a solid seven.

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Israel Fehr is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter. Follow @israelfehr